Post by Chicago Jake on Jul 14, 2005 0:22:27 GMT -6
This is a burning issue, admit it. You lie awake nights, as do I, wondering if your posts are the objects of derision from your cyber-correspondents the world across. Let's talk, tovarish.
Many believe that ending a sentence with a preposition (that is, a word employed to connect a noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word; a particle used with a noun or pronoun [in English always in the objective case] to make a phrase limiting some other word; -- so called because usually placed before the word with which it is phrased) is WRONG. But many others believe that it is just fine, and that to disparage such usage is merely pedantic arrogance.
For example, consider the following classic joke:
Or, this other illustrative example:
I think you get the idea. The question remains, ending a sentence with a preposition: Acceptable? Or Not?.......Jake
Many believe that ending a sentence with a preposition (that is, a word employed to connect a noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word; a particle used with a noun or pronoun [in English always in the objective case] to make a phrase limiting some other word; -- so called because usually placed before the word with which it is phrased) is WRONG. But many others believe that it is just fine, and that to disparage such usage is merely pedantic arrogance.
For example, consider the following classic joke:
A young freshman from Tennessee is spending his first day at Harvard wandering the campus. He stops an upper-classman in a letterman's sweater and asks: "Excuse me, sir, could y'all please tell me where the library is at?"
The upper-classman looks down his nose and responds with, "Young man, this Haaahhhvahd; we do not end sentences with a preposition."
The freshman then apologetically amends his question: "Excuse me, sir, could y'all please tell me where the library is at, ASSHOLE?"
The upper-classman looks down his nose and responds with, "Young man, this Haaahhhvahd; we do not end sentences with a preposition."
The freshman then apologetically amends his question: "Excuse me, sir, could y'all please tell me where the library is at, ASSHOLE?"
Or, this other illustrative example:
While editing the proof of one of his books, Winston Churchill spotted a sentence that had been clumsily rewritten by the editor to eliminate a preposition at the end. The elder statesman mocked the intention with a comment in the margin: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."
I think you get the idea. The question remains, ending a sentence with a preposition: Acceptable? Or Not?.......Jake
